PROV-ISSUE-474 (instances-and-bundles): Bundles and valid instances [prov-dm-constraints]

PROV-ISSUE-474 (instances-and-bundles): Bundles and valid instances [prov-dm-constraints]

http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/474

Raised by: Simon Miles
On product: prov-dm-constraints

As requested, I'm submitting an issue where I feel a PROV-Constraints review comment of mine is not completely answered.

My original comment:
   > Bundles
   > -------
   > F. Section 6.1 seems a bit out of the blue. "The definitions
   > [etc.]... assume a PROV instance with exactly one bundle", and then
   > multiple bundles are handled as exactly the same number of
   > instances. Why? Why is there a connection between number of instances
   > and number of bundles? Why would a bundle be considered to be only one
   > instance? I thought a bundle was an identified set of statements,
   > allowing for provenance of provenance, which seems a distinct matter
   > from whether a set of statements are valid. It seems fine for a user
   > to treat one bundle as one instance if they want to, but there's no
   > reason given why this is the general case. 

Response from editors:
 > I am not sure I understand this comment.  However, I have rewritten
 > slightly the intro of section 6.1.
 > 
 > "The definitions, inferences, and constraints, and the resulting notions of normalization, validity and equivalence, assume a PROV instance that consists of exactly one bundle, the toplevel bundle, containing all PROV statements in the top level of the bundle (that is, not enclosed in a named bundle). In this section, we describe how to deal with PROV instances consisting of multiple named bundles. Briefly, each bundle is handled independently; there is no interaction between bundles from the perspective of applying definitions, inferences, or constraints, computing normal forms, or checking validity or equivalence."

I agree this is clearer, but I don't feel it answers the key questions in my comment. To put my comment another way: you have explained checking validity where an instance consists of one bundle and of multiple bundles. The two other possibilities I see are:
 (a) A bundle containing multiple instances;
 (b) An instance that is a collection of PROV descriptions with no identifier and so is not a bundle, e.g. a provenance service query result.

How do we deal with each of these cases? Or, if they cannot occur, why not?

Thanks,
Simon

Received on Thursday, 9 August 2012 14:45:56 UTC